Philosophy and Religion, Part 10
Philosophical Battlefield
This week brings the last of the ten parts of our CU
Generic Course called “Philosophy, Religion, and Revolution”. There will be
three items, of which this is the first. The suggested item for discussion is
the last one: Ron Press’s “New Tools for
Marxists”, linked below; but if you can at least skim the other two, the
discussion will be more complete. Hence the change of order.
The question of the collective human subject has been most concisely and
forcefully expressed in this series by Cyril Smith in the section of “The Communist
Manifesto after 150 Years” called “The
Subject of History”.
The first linked download for this final part is “Postmodernism &
Hindu Nationalism” by the philosopher Meera
Nanda [pictured]. This work is given because it shows how several pathological,
anti-human strands of philosophy can play out in concert, mutually reinforcing
and amplifying each other. In the case of India as shown in this article, these
were Postmodernism; Hindu Nationalism (“Hindutva”); “Vedic Science”; and
reactionary feminism.
Time has passed since the CU first began using this text. Ten years ago
it was cutting-edge, and it is still useful to South Africans because the
question of rational science, of feminism and of “Congress” politics and of potential
successors to “Congress” have meaning for us. But Postmodernism has receded. It
is no longer so sure of itself or so hegemonic as in the past.
Meera Nanda described her purpose thus:
“This essay is more about the left wing-counterpart of
[Yankee] Hindutva: a set of postmodernist ideas, mostly (but not entirely)
exported from the West, which unintentionally ends up supporting Hindutva's
propaganda regarding Vedic science. Over the last couple of decades, a set of
very fashionable, supposedly "radical" critiques of modern science
have dominated the Western universities. These critical theories of science go under
the label of "postmodernism" or "social constructivism".
These theories see modern science as an essentially Western, masculine and
imperialistic way of acquiring knowledge. Intellectuals of Indian origin, many
of them living and working in the West, have played a lead role in development
of postmodernist critiques of modern science as a source of colonial
"violence" against non-Western ways of knowing.”
The Indian case is not altogether different to what was, and could again
be, the situation in South Africa, where under President Thabo Mbeki we had
Postmodernism (bourgeois “normality” following the liberation struggle);
pseudo-science around HIV/AIDS (Virodene, African potato, beetroot et cetera);
Africanism; and again, reactionary feminism.
What is common to all of these aspects, whether in India or in South
Africa, is the evacuation of popular agency and refusal of the mass Subject of
History following the liberation struggle, which in both cases had promised
this (mass popular agency) above all other things. In India the promise was “Swaraj” and in South Africa,
“Power to the People”.
Independence and national sovereignty were supposed to be inseparable
from mass popular agency. In practice, political independence co-existed with
bourgeois dictatorship and neo-colonialism, and these latter factors trumped
and negated mass popular power. The flight from mass popular agency was a
middle-class and bourgeois betrayal of the workers and the poor.
Revolutionary organs of people’s power were dismantled in each case.
Golden Calves were raised up for worship, in substitution for the slogans of
popular power. These substitutes were the slogans of bourgeois nationalism and
of national mystique.
Postmodernism is the hopeless, degenerate philosophy of the hopeless,
degenerate thing called Imperialism. The fight for full freedom in a world
dominated by Imperialism was unavoidably a fight against Postmodernism. It is a
revolutionary necessity. The purpose of this CU Generic Course called
“Philosophy, Religion, and Revolution” has been to arm the communists for such
battles. Above all what is needed is devotion to and priority for the human
Subject, i.e. Power to the People!
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Postmodernism and
Hindu Nationalism, 2004, Nanda, Part 1 and Part 2.
